New Year, New You?

The New Year often brings about positive thoughts and encouragement to try

something new or to make a change. If you have thought about giving up smoking
but can never find the ‘right’ time to give it a go, the New Year brings that
perfect opportunity. One of the most important aspects of quitting is that you
are doing it because you believe you can do it and that you are doing it for
yourself. However, if you live or work in the City of London or in the London
Borough of Hackney there are some initiatives running in January that may help you along the way.

Workers in the City of London will not have to pay prescription charges on any stop smoking medication for the month of January including both Champix and Nicotine Replacement Therapy. Those living or working in Hackney could have the chance to receive a £20 shopping voucher if they successfully quit with our service. For more information call 0800 169 1943.

Remember quitting on your own can be difficult so to give yourself the best chance why not see what’s available in your local area. Last January, an incredible 62% who set a quit a quit day with us successfully stopped. Go on, you can do it too!

New Royal London Hospital

Last week the first clinical services started to move in to the new Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel. With more space and state-of-the-art facilities the hospital will continue to provide excellent healthcare across East London. We also had the first referrals for inpatients requesting smoking cessation support, another service run by the Smokers' Clinic. This aims to help inpatients spend more time on the wards receiving care, reduce withdrawal symptoms and hopefully assist them in quitting smoking completely - reducing readmission rates.

The Price of Nicotine

As all smokers will be aware the price of cigarettes always seems to be rising. More expensive cigarettes should reduce the prevalence of smokers, but it hasn't - smokers smoke slightly less cigarettes per day but in order to compensate for reducing they smoke harder. Did you know that you can get up to 6 times more nicotine out of a cigarette if you smoke it hard enough? Have you thought about how hard you smoke your cigarettes?

 

Patches

At the Smokers Clinic our clients are always interested on the latest news regarding stop smoking medication and occasionally things pop up in the media that can cause concern. Some readers of this blog may have read the front cover story of the Metro yesterday regarding the use of prescription based painkilling patches in strong heat. There was an additional suggestion that using a nicotine patch in a hot bath or shower could cause an overdose of nicotine leading to unpleasant side effects. So should you be worried?

In short, no. Nicotine patches are completely safe to use in the bath, shower and sunbathing!

In our years of clinical experience we have never come across this to be an issue – in fact many clients report difficulty in getting the patches to stay on in water in the first place!  We can reassure you that it is extremely hard to ‘overdose’ on a nicotine patch even if you wear it in the bath - it’s actually probably best to try and keep it on to keep those cravings at bay! At our annual smoking cessation update last week other clinicians from around the country reported that some of their clients find heating up the patch beforehand improves the functionality of the patch. Recently researchers in Denmark found that by heating a nicotine patch it improved nicotine release and increased nicotine uptake with no reported side effects or discomfort on participants.  If you are ever concerned or have questions about how best to use the nicotine patch then speak with your trained stop smoking advisor, pharmacist or GP who will be able to answer you query.  

Addiction Incorporated

At the Smokers’ Clinic we try to focus on treating nicotine dependence and stay out of policy and legislation regarding tobacco. However this trailer for a new feature film – “Addiction Incorporated”, scheduled for release a week today in the States, looks very provocative.

It must be noted that they say nicotine kills - nicotine from cigarettes is very addictive, but it's the thousands of other chemicals in cigarettes which cause the damage, just the nicotine that keeps people smoking them.

We don’t know when the film will be available over here, but will keep you updated.

Quit Smoking this January!

Every year there is a significant increase in the percentage of smokers trying to quit in January. However as we all know most new year’s resolutions unfortunately don’t last long! Why not increase your chances of quitting for good this time and join the smokers successfully quitting here at the Smokers’ Clinic. Furthermore we have some exciting new research taking place into some new methods in quitting. Take a look at our research trial page or call us on 0207 882 8230.

Younger adults are quitting more

Data gathered from smokers in England over the last year show that those between 18-34 years of age are setting more quit dates comnpared to those in age groups above them. Do you smoke and fall in to this younger age group? If you would like to join the hundreds of thousands of younger adults quitting smoking in England each year call the Smokers' Clinic now on 0207 882 8230.